Here’s a case that could be interesting to follow:
A South Korean university said on Wednesday it is suing the prestigious US university Yale for 50 million dollars (S$69 million) over a fake degree scandal which it said caused ‘irreparable damage’ to its reputation.
Dongguk University said in a statement it will take the US university to court for wrongly confirming that high-profile former employee Shin Jeong Ah had a Yale doctorate.In the lawsuit filed on Tuesday with the Connecticut District Court, Dongguk cited ‘wrongdoings’ by Yale over the incident which blew up into a major scandal last year.
This was a huge scandal in Korea late last year. I didn’t cover it here on the site because there was just too much information coming out to cover it adequately on a mostly baseball Web site.
On the surface it seems preposterous that a Korean university would try to sue Yale over a fake degree. One would think fake degrees are endemic in Korea (well, they probably are), yet, I think these guys have a case.
The affair began when the Seoul university hired Ms Shin as an assistant art professor in 2005 and asked Yale to confirm her claimed degree, which it did.
Ms Shin also won co-directorship at the country’s largest contemporary art exhibition and was the lover of a top presidential adviser.
When suspicions arose about her credentials, Dongguk approached Yale again and was reportedly told Ms Shin had never attended the university and that the initial confirmation was a mistake.
Dongguk fired Ms Shin last year after the 35-year-old was found to have forged undergraduate and master’s degree certificates from the University of Kansas and Yale.
Her case sparked revelations and confessions about forged academic records from teachers and celebrities including top artists and entertainers.
It prompted prosecutors to launch a crackdown on false diplomas.
Ms Shin was a lover of Byeon Yang Kyun, 58, who was dismissed last year as a top policy adviser to the then-president Roh Moo Hyun because of alleged corruption.
I suppose it depends on what circumstances the degree was verified. I’m sure, as far as fake degrees go, this was a good one.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Brian // Mar 27, 2008 at 7:06 am
Funny comment from the Dongkuk President a few months back:
However, in an interview with The Korea Times Tuesday, [President] Oh said Dongguk would take legal action against Yale over the incident. “We can make good our friendship with Yale after we settle our losses due to them.”
Yeeeeaaaahhhhh . . . as if Dongkuk is in any position to start demanding anything from Yale. If this were, say, Dongkuk versus SNU or another top Korean university, then I don’t think you’d have a case. But doesn’t this all go back to those wacky libel laws, where people hav ea right to privacy and a right to protect their name? It seems like the case’d hold up in Korean court, but not in the realm that is called “real life.” I suspect that, because just about everyone in the country had been exposed as a fraud, folks need somebody to blame, and a foreign university is as good a target as any.
2 seok // Oct 9, 2008 at 10:56 pm
good point Brian,
and also Dongkuk univ. is not even close to be categorized as one of the best univ.s in south korea
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